Australia Facts and Travel Guide

G’day. I guess you are looking for Australia
facts or travel tips. Or maybe both? Well,
congratulations. Here you have a website not made
by a travel agent who wants your dollars, but by a totally independent localtravel
addict who shares real
first-hand experiences with you, along with Australian
maps and a heap of fun facts about
Australia. But no matter whether you plan to travel or
are just looking for Australia facts, it’s always nice to go for a
trip, isn’t it?

Sydney Opera House. Courtesy of Tourism
Australia

Well, let’s go. Let’s start in New
South Wales
and Sydney,
one of the most beautiful cities in the world with its Opera House and
Harbour Bridge, and world-famous beaches Bondi and Manly. A day trip
out? Blue
Mountains National Park that
offers great bushwalking is only one hour from the city.
North
of
Sydney is Australia’s oldest wine district Hunter
Valley,
where hundreds of wine lovers cruise from cellar to cellar sampling the
products of different vineyards. If wine is not your poison, go even
further north, to Byron
Bay
and Nimbin – Australia’s answer to Amsterdam. But be aware that the
smell of dope on the streets of these towns does not mean it’s legal.

Byron Bay, NSW. Courtesy of Tourism
Australia

Any
further north from here – be warned – is the state of "hillbillies",
"backwards" and "banana benders". But it’s only the jelaous southerners
that have given Queensland
this
reputation. Queenslanders
are in fact the luckiest people in Australia. No other state in
Australia has got so many hot and sunny days, tropical cities, national
parks and coral islands. Brisbane,
Townsville
and Cairns
are top cities with everything you ever need. Surfers Paradise and the
theme parks pull millions of tourists to the Gold
Coast every year. Carnarvon
Gorge, Lawn
Hill, Wooroonooran
National Park and Daintree
rainforests beat any
southern national parks. Cape
York is one of Australia's very last frontiers. Fraser
Island is the world's
largest sand island. Hinchinbrook
Island is the world’s
largest island national park. And the 2000 km long Great
Barrier Reef,
also world’s largest, offers endless snorkelling in turquoise blue
waters around more than 600 islands surrounded by corals and 1500
species of fish, including our Hollywood star Nemo. Mate, can you hear
that I am a Queenslander?? Phew! Let’s move on...

Queensland. Courtesy of Tourism Queensland

South of New
South Wales (and Sydney), is
the state of Victoria.
It’s probably Australia’s densest inhabited state, although it’s way
too cold here to my liking. The high altitudes and southern latitudes
mean Victoria
is a snowy place during the winter, and unless you intend to go
snowboarding, I recommend you visit between October and April.
Like
many other states, Victoria has got some historical towns from the days
of gold-rushes, and some good bushwalks in national parks like The
Grampians and Wilsons
Promontory. But what you
should not miss are the famous rock formations Twelve Apostles on the
beautiful Great
Ocean Road.

Twelve Apostles Victoria. Courtesy of
Tourism
Australia

And then of course, there is Melbourne.
Australians from this part of the continent are divided into two
groups: Sydney-lovers (and Melbourne-haters) and Melbourne-lovers (and
Sydney-haters). The rivarly has been on for decades and went so far
that they had to build Canberra
in between the two, to
become the capital of Australia. Having been living in Sydney
myself, I gave my heart to Syndey, but Melbourne has some good things
to offer: Australia’s most beautiful central train station, colourful
Queen Victoria Markets, a famous cricket ground, and - trams that have
caused some of Australia’s weirdest traffic rules.

Melbourne. Courtesy of Tourism Australia

Melbourne is the place to catch the ferry to Australia’s biggest island
and a state for itself, Tasmania
– a
bushwalkers’ paradise. Most of the island is covered by national parks,
the most famous being the Cradle
Mountain Lake St Clair.
South of the state capital Hobart
which has lately got famous
for giving Denmark a princess, is the historic Port
Arthur,
known for its cruel convict history, a haunted prison, and a massacre
in 1996 when a freak by the name of Martin Bryant opened fire and
killed 35 people before burning down a local guesthouse and ending up
in prison for the rest of his life. But despite its history, Tasmania
is a beautiful place to
visit.

Tasmania. Courtesy of Tourism Australia

All the rest of Australian states contain a little bit of life around
their capital cities, and then a great portion of what we call "the outback"
(New
South Wales and Queensland
have an outback too but
it’s not quite as empty as in west).

Nullarbor. Courtesy of Tourism Australia

In South
Australia for example, you have Adelaide,
Australia’s largest and most famous wine district Barossa
Valley, and a large area of
uninhabited desert. In Western
Australia,
you have Perth
(a great city!), Fremantle,
Rottnest Island and the giant karri and jarrah forests in South-western
WA,
but the rest of the huge state which covers almost half of the whole
continent, consists of a few mining towns and dusty deserts. Northern
Territory is wonderfully tropical around Darwin
and the famous Kakadu
National Park,
but go south and you enter the great emptiness of the inland Australia,
which I personally like the most! Australian Outback is guaranteed to
make you forget your work. It’s so different, so relaxed, and so
adventurous. And in the very heart of it all, you have that big red
rock in Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park
(aka Ayers Rock and The Olgas) that you have surely heard about and
mate, don’t miss it, it’s worth every kilometre it took you to get
here.

Uluru. Courtesy of Tourism Northern
Territory

GREAT TRIP, HEY? NOW ... Oh.. did I forget the eighth state - ACT
(Australian
Capital Territory)?
Well it's a tiny state mostly consisiting of Australia's capital
Canberra - a city known for its lack of decent pubs (which itself is
quite un-Australian). At the expence of proper pubs, Canberra
has (of course) a Parliament House, a National University, a National
Library, and a great lot of national museums, as it should be in a
capital city.

Canberra. Courtesy of Tourism Australia

NOW ... WHAT IF YOU ARE NOT A TRAVELLER AT ALL AND ONLY WANT A FEW
AUSTRALIA FACTS? No worries. This website is full of Australia facts so
it works for you too! It contains a lot more than travel
tips
like information on Australia visa requirements, cheap plane tickets to
Australia, car rentals, road distances, train travel, Australia budget
accommodation, backpacker jobs, Australian celebrations and fun things
to do in Australia.

Kangaroos. Courtesy of Tourism Australia

Australia Facts about Animals, Plants and Geology
On the Australian Animals
page you'll find
information about Australian beautiful birds and unique animals
including koalas and kangaroos, dingoes and wombats, as well as
platypus and echidna; and whales and dolphins. On the
Australian
Nature
page you'll find Australia facts about the country's geography
and
geology,
and rocks and minerals;
as well as the
variable vegetation in Australian deserts, temperate and tropical
rainforests, alpine areas and eucalyptus forests.

Tasmanian rainforest. Courtesy of Tourism
Australia

Australia Facts about Aboriginal People
On Aboriginal
People
page you'll find Australia facts about what the Aboriginal culture once
was like and what has happened in the history of Australia since the
British convicts jumped off
their First Fleet in Botany Bay.

Aboriginal rock painting. Courtesy of
Tourism Australia

Australia Facts about Aussie Culture
On the Australian
Culture
pages you'll find Australian facts about food and drinks, and learn
what a mixture of cultures Australian population is today. But you'll
realise that regardless of the background, for an average Aussie, the
beach-beer-and-barbecue culture comes first.

Port Douglas. Courtesy of Tourism Queensland

Funny Australia Facts
This brings to mind a few Australian
jokes and other
time killers like some fun Australia facts trivia and Australian
Slang Dictionary
– it’s fun to know Australian English but they do understand you
without you having to express yourself by “fair dinkum” or “she’ll be
apples”.

Courtesy of Tourism Australia

Australia Facts: Current Time and Weather
Knowing that it can be tricky to keep track of local time and weather
from the other side of the earth, I have explained when-to-go-where in
Australia under Climate
and Weather. To make it
really easy to track the time, there is the current local time in each
state ticking in Current
Time, and you can find out
the current weather conditions in Weather
in
Australia. Here is the
time in eastern Australia (Sydney)
at the moment:

Australia
Facts about Dangers and Road Distances
As you plan your Australian trip, you may also want to know about
what's dangerous in Australia and how long are Australian road
distances. You can find Australian dangerous animals, and other dangers
such as bushfires and dangerous beaches in Dangerous
Things; and you can find
out travel directions and calculate the length of your trip in Road
Distances.

There is a Google map
in the bottom of all the destination pages showing you the location of
the places you are reading about. Here is the map of the whole
Australia where I've tagged the places which I have mentioned on this
web page. You can click on the tags to see what places they are, and
double-click anywhere on the map to zoom it in and see the places
closer. Drag the map to move around, and if you want to see the
satellite image with Google Earth, click on "Sat" in the top right hand
corner.

Courtesy of Tourism Australia

"BUT - that’s not all - YOU can now also get
involved on this website".
Yes - that's what has been promised here for a good while now, but
finally, it's happened. You can now build your own page on
Gondwananet - write travel
reviews
or add your story or comments about a place which you can do in the end
of almost every destination page on this site. Have fun creating your
own page(s) and thanks
for your contribution to Gondwananet! More interactive features coming
in the future :-)

Looking for more Australia facts?

NOTE: This website is written in British
English,
which is the English we use in Australia. You will find words like
"traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all correct in the
language used in Australia!

DISCLAIMER:
While every care is taken for all the
information on this website to be correct, Gondwananet is not to be
blamed for anyone getting lost in Australian cities, running out of
petrol in the bush, missing planes or getting caught in customs. Nor is
it responsible for any snake
bites or hangovers, limbs
missed while swimming in crocodile-infested
waters or heads
laughed off while reading Useless
Junk! We just hope you
enjoy :-)

Using this Website

Note:
This site uses
British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will
find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all
correct in the language used in Australia.

Disclaimer: Although
best efforts have been made to ensure
that all the information on this site is correct,
gondwananet.com is not to be blamed should there be a mistake.

Copyright notice:
All contents of this website are strictly protected
by the Law of Copyright. What
does that mean?